Category: Weather

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Friday/ cheers 🥂

It was a lovely day with blue skies all around and 78 °F (26 °C)— a high temperature for late April.
We drop back into the normal range by Sunday, some 10 degrees cooler.

‘Cheers from Oregon’ says a little panel on the side of this Hop Valley Brewing Co. beer truck, here on 15th Avenue on Capitol Hill.
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Friday 🤗

Happy Friday.
Here’s another Nineteenth Avenue Tree Canopy report: looking fine, with the green of the budding leaves on the tree limbs just starting to show.

Seattle and western Washington have been locked in a cool, active weather pattern much of the spring, but the days are getting warmer. (Only 52°F/ 11°C today, but the weather people are promising us 72°F/ 22°C by next Friday).
That’s the Microsoft Connector company bus in the distance. Maybe it has employees on that are working on the Bing AI chatbot. I need to check it out— or create a ChatGPT account, to see what the brouhaha over the latest online AI tools is all about. Can the AI bot write me a poem about fossils?  Hmm, I wonder.
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Thursday/ 🌸

The blossoms are out here on Capitol Hill’s 16th Avenue— but the weather is still on the chilly side. We only had 52 °F (11 °C) here in the city today.
(We’re on track to experience the first recorded April without a single 60-degree day, according to forecasters, reports the Seattle Times).

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Wednesday/ a geodesic dome 🗻

The New York Times posted pictures shared by their readers in California, of the snow there. I like this one.

A geodesic dome in the Santa Cruz mountains. The snowpack in the vast Sierra Nevada mountain range is the deepest it’s been in decades, exceeding 200% of the normal snowpack depth in some areas.
[Photo by Karrie Gaylord]
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Sunday ⛄️

There was an inch or so of snow on the ground this morning, but most of it had melted by the afternoon (42 °F /6 °C).

This little snowman on 17th Avenue was melting fast by 2.30 pm.
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Thursday/ at the Park: clear and cold 🌬

I ventured out of the house to get a little sun today, even though the high was barely above freezing (34°F/ 1°C).
These pictures are from Volunteer Park.

The bronze sculpture of William H. Seward at the greenhouse in Volunteer Park. The statue was unveiled at the Alaska–Yukon–Pacific Exposition in 1909 and relocated to the park the following year. Steward was a determined opponent of the spread of slavery in the years leading up to the American Civil War, and was Secretary of State of the Union during the Civil War.
[Source of text: Wikipedia]
There was a murder of crows on the lawns by the greenhouse.
It’s a good time of the year to get a clear view of the water tower.
Look for the tiny slice of white waxing crescent moon in the blue sky towards the top and in the center of the picture.
These are two of 14 new stone benches installed and placed throughout the park. The benches were commissioned by The Henry art museum, and the artist is Chloë Bass (b. 1984, New York).

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Tuesday/ a little hail— and a little math ⏱

There was fine hail on the deck at my house this morning, and a little more came down early in the evening.

Let’s see what this picture can tell us ..
First— there is more hail in the middle of the deck because of little stones tumbling off the roof of the house. (And the big fir tree in the corner of my yard casts a ‘rain shadow’).
Second— let’s say those little white streaks in the top of the picture are 2 in. long.
My phone camera recorded the shutter speed of this picture as 1/265 s.
So ..
2 inches in 1/265 sec would be equal to
530 in / sec, which is equal to
1,908,000 in/ hour, which is equal to
159,000 ft/ hour, which is equal to about 
30 mph, the terminal velocity of the little hail stones. 🤗
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Sunday ☀️

There was no sun here— on this day that the Romans had named after the sun. There is going to be snow in the mountains tomorrow and Tuesday, and freezing cold towards the end of the week.

Light drizzle, and looking north on 19th Avenue at East Aloha St.
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Friday/ out of the cold ❄

Happy Friday.
Here’s a picture with a report from the Anchorage Police Dept. that was posted on Facebook earlier this week.

Statement from the Anchorage Police Dept.—
We got a call from a concerned citizen regarding a pig in Fairview, standing on the side of the road, who “looked cold.”
We’re all familiar with refrigerated bacon, we just never thought we’d respond to a call for service related to that topic.
As it turns out, the portly dude was quite friendly. You’ll be happy to know he has been reunited with his family and all is well. Would you like to know the best part? His name. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you Elvis. Elvis Pigsley.
To which someone wrote back: ‘Hogwash. It was a Hambush’. 😆
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Tuesday/ broken clouds and sun breaks 🌥

There was a dusting of snow on the shadowy side of my garage roof this morning.
It warmed up to 43 °F (6 °C) later on— the bare minimum to going out for a walk.
This Identifiable Flying Object is a Boeing 777-300ER (twin-jet) from Emirates Airlines. It had just taken off at 3.38 pm for its 14 hour 50 min flight to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. [Information from the Flightradar24 app on my phone].

I like the square windows in the gray and turquoise siding. I’m approaching the corner of East Union St and 19th Ave (and thinking brr .. ! it’s time to head back home).
A lamp post sticker promoting I-135. (It’s a special election in Seattle for which the ballots were due today). Initiative 135 asks voters to approve the Seattle Social Housing Developer, an agency that would develop, own, acquire and maintain so-called “social housing” in Seattle.
It’s not clear if this initiative will move the needle on affordable housing. There is no funding mechanism written into the initiative’s language (to prevent it from being tossed out by the courts). If approved, the developer will immediately be able to apply for grants and philanthropic dollars.
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Thursday/ Happy Groundhog Day ❄️

From the National Weather Service: Those stripes across Texas and Arkansas represent a massive ice storm, and an arctic blast into the Northeast is bringing historic and bone-chillingly low temperatures to the Great Lakes and New York City. 🥶

The groundhog from Pennsylvania says there will be 6 more weeks of winter. (Of course there will be, looking at the weather map).

The 51 °F (11 °C ) and calm weather we had here in the city today felt almost balmy, though.  I walked back to Capitol Hill from downtown, after taking the No 10 bus to get there.

The pesky crowds of Friday were long gone this morning, and I could take a better picture of Mowitch Man basking in the sun (at the new Seattle Convention Center called Summit. This is a type of statue that had traditionally been made by Coast Salish people to invite visitors into their territories. The artist is Andrea Wilbur-Sigo from the Squaxin Island Tribe. She started out with a 20-foot Western red cedar log. The figure is holding a ‘talking stick’ and those are Salish-style salmon emblems on his clothing.
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Wednesday/ a little pickle 🥒 ball

It was warm enough (48 °F / 9 °C) for the amigos to play a little pickleball this afternoon.

The evergreen trees are too tall for much of the low winter sun’s light to make it onto the courts at Mount Baker Park, but that’s OK. There was plenty of blue sky overhead.
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Thursday/ soaked ☔️

It’s a challenge to go for a run outside, or to play sport outdoors in the Pacific Northwest winter.
When it’s clear and dry, it may be too cold.
When it’s cloudy and milder, it may be raining.
There’s always skiing and snowboarding in the mountains, of course.

The beautiful new blue surfaces of the Miller Park Pickleball and Tennis Courts on 19th Ave. are soaked today.
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Saturday/ the cold and damp 🌫

In restless dreams, I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
‘Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
– From ‘The Sound of Silence’ by Simon & Garfunkel (1964)

I stepped out of my house into the cold to take a few pictures of the fog, late last night.

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Friday/ never mind the snow ⛄️

There’s a little snow on the way this weekend for the low-lying areas around Puget Sound, say the meteorologists.

This picture appeared in the South African newspaper Die Burger (‘The Citizen’) today, obtained from a Facebook post. Rudi, Patrick, Jacques and Ferdie are South Africans working on a farm near Nekoosa, Wisconsin. They refused to let a little snow and 25 °F temperatures stop them from their doing their regular barbecue.
Yes: better believe it when a South African says ‘Nou gaan ons braai’ (‘Now we’re going to barbecue’). Those are four favorite South African words. 🤗
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Sunday/ a ferry ride 🛳

I tagged along with Bryan for a trip to Hansville, today.

Downtown Seattle. Checking out the 1200 Stewart St apartment towers from Denny Way. Construction has almost ground to a halt, it seems. About 10 of the 45 stories are still completely bare, and all of the floors still need balcony rails.
Tacoma Narrows Bridge. The twin bridges connect the city of Tacoma with the Kitsap Peninsula and carry State Route 16 over the strait called Tacoma Narrows.
Route 307. This is just north of Poulsbo, driving north towards Hansville.
Bainbridge Island Ferry Terminal.
On the Wenatchee ferry.  Departing Bainbridge Island. The Marine Vessel Wenatchee is a Jumbo Mark-II-class ferry that was launched in 1998, and has been doing service on the Bainbridge Island-Seattle route alongside the Tacoma.
On the Wenatchee ferry. A view of the Seattle skyline from inside the doors on the passenger deck. There is a bone-chilling windchill outside on the deck.
On the Wenatchee ferry. The view from the car deck down below.
Arrival at Seattle Ferry Terminal. 
Pioneer Square. This is the Sinking Ship Parking Garage, with the iconic 1914 Smith Tower behind it.

We drove south and around Puget Sound to get to the Kitsap Peninsula, and then took the ferry from the Bainbridge Island Terminal to get back to Seattle.

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Saturday/ snow patrol 🌨

There was more snow on Friday night, with about 2 inches on the ground on Saturday morning.

I ventured out into the cold for a few pictures before the start of the USA-Netherlands World Cup match.
Congrats to Oranje for the win!